November 16, 2018, CaliforniaRoughly one year before the materialization of Proposition 64, the city of Fontana adopted quite a restrictive ordinance regarding the domestic cultivation of cannabis. The Fontana City Council approved a measure in January 2017, which exponentially increased the fee to obtain a permit for growing MMJ on private properties. The ordinance also gave the local law enforcement bodies the authority to search all the Read entire story

Hopefully, more cities are creative with this hard stop.
We recently wrote about an announcement by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (“CDFA”) that temporary license applications need to be submitted by December 1, 2018 in order to be reviewed on time for approval and issuance before December 31, 2018. To date, California Department of Public Health (“CDPH”) followed suit, but the California Bureau of Read entire story

You get what you negotiate in development agreements.
This is the third post in our three-part series on development agreements in California. In our first post we provide an overview of the use (and misuse) of development agreements in the cannabis industry. The second post breaks down the basics of development agreement laws. Here, we will discuss the key terms to include and what to watch out for when negotiating a development agreement with a Read entire story

We’ve got a lot of questions for the BCC right now.
Last month, California’s regulatory agencies charged with writing commercial cannabis rules released new modifications to the final rules proposed in July. The Bureau of Cannabis Control’s (BCC) proposed modifications contained some of the most dramatic changes, including what would effectively be an outright ban on intellectual property licensing for cannabis products—something we are Read entire story

As we wrote on Tuesday, the midterm elections were monumental for cannabis: Michigan voters approved of a proposal legalizing recreational marijuana for adult use, Utah and Missouri will soon establish medical marijuana regimes, and Texas Representative and marijuana antagonist Pete Sessions lost to a Democrat.
All in all, Tuesday was a good day at the state and national level. But cannabis wasn’t just on the ballot at the state or national Read entire story

These proposed BCC regulations would be a mistake.
As we’ve been blogging about for the last couple of weeks, the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC) recently released modifications to the proposed regulations for cannabis licensees, one of which effectively prohibits all licensing, white labeling and manufacturing agreements between two parties where one of those parties is not a licensed cannabis business. In our post on this modification, we Read entire story

It comes as no surprise that since January 1st of this year, California has seen a significant rise in cannabis sales. Within the state, the current $2.7 billion industry is predicted to nearly double by 2020.
Part of this has to do with the number of people trying to make a buck off the new market. Within the first six months alone, California saw an increase from 1,272 licenses to 6,421. Yet, the more important factor is the evolving Read entire story

Certain L.A. dispensaries may soon be stuck in place.
Los Angeles’s existing medical marijuana dispensaries (“EMMDs”) under Measure M will soon be precluded from relocating from their current operations unless and until they receive their local annual licenses from the City of Los Angeles. Movement post-initial application to L.A. has been a common practice for EMMDs for some time, and has apparently caused a rift with other potential Read entire story

A California cannabis licensing backlog is imminent.
A backlog of cannabis license applications has no doubt happened in almost all of the other states that have medical and adult use licensing. You wouldn’t normally think this is such a big or concerning development, but in cannabis licensing delays can mean angry investors, a complete 180 for your business plans and even insolvency.
In California, a licensing logjam was bound to catch up Read entire story

Hemp and Hemp-CBD in California is wild right now.
As readers of this blog know, California is on its way to developing robust laws governing the sale (and all other aspects) of cannabis and cannabis products. So, it’s somewhat surprising that California’s laws concerning the sale of industrial hemp and hemp-derived cannabidiol (“hemp-CBD”), to the extent they even exist, are all over the map. And in some cases, selling industrial hemp or Read entire story

On Friday, the three California agencies charged with issuing and enforcing rules for cannabis business licensees issued a stack of proposed changes to the final rules it had previously proposed in July. Many of the most dramatic changes came from the BCC and will likely motivate more than a few comments during the rulemaking process (deadline for comments on these proposed changes is Nov. 5, FYI).
The Department of Food and Agriculture, which Read entire story

Huge changes ahead. Get your comments in by Nov. 5!
Last Friday, we wrote about the amended proposed permanent cannabis regulations that are now in a 15-day notice-and-comment period for each California agency—the Bureau of Cannabis Control (“BCC”), Department of Public Health (“DPH”), and Department of Food and Agriculture (“DFA”). Each of the proposed rules can be found here, here, and here. The next round of written public comments is due to Read entire story

Get your comments in by Nov. 5 and help us fix this.
On Friday, the California Bureau of Cannabis Control, California Department of Public Health, and California Department of Food and Agriculture issued 15-day notices of modification to the texts of their respective proposed regulations. The California Cannabis Portal has published links to each notice and the modified texts of the proposed regulations. For each set, the respective Department Read entire story

Don’t skim over that indemnification clause!
Coming from Seattle to Los Angeles, I’ve already seen one state flip from being a “gray medical cannabis state” to a fully regulated licensing system and I understand how painful a process this can be. So much of what I saw in Washington State is now happening in California.
In California today, folks are jockeying for operational licenses on the state and local levels under Read entire story

Here we go again!
This morning, the California Bureau of Cannabis Control, California Department of Public Health, and California Department of Food and Agriculture issued 15-day notices of modification to the texts of their respective proposed regulations. The California Cannabis Portal has published links to each notice and the modified texts of the proposed regulations. For each set, the respective Department will accept written comments by Read entire story